Sheila has been invited by cool cats Two Destination Language to be part of Breaking Bread: On Otherness at Lancaster Arts this month. Read on for further details:
Two people are sitting on a couch. A woman and a man. Coming from very different backgrounds, with polar opposite experiences, they are artists, working together.
Another artist joins them. They are talking about life, art, politics, childhood, parents, economies, ethnicity, language, accent, identity, belonging. Otherness keeps arriving. Being an outsider keeps returning. A space between, a space of being othered, keeps reappearing.
Since being awarded the 2017 Nuffield Bursary, theatre company Two Destination Language (Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie) have been developing their latest project On Otherness in dialogue with the team at Lancaster Arts, and with a range artists who work with identity as a subject (including Jenny Sealey, Pauline Mayers, Kate Marsh, Chris Goode, Rajni Shah, Season Butler, Lena Simic, Sheila Ghelani, Peter McMaster and Tanya Steinhauser).
Through this rich collaboration, Two Destination Language are exploring the challenges and rewards of making art from the personal experience of difference or being othered. As questions around diversity and equality in our society become more present, we look at how artists’ work with their own experiences has influenced their artistic practice, the audiences they make work for and with, and the conditions in which they make work.
This May, the company are opening this conversation further by inviting you to take a seat at the table, so that together we may begin an attempt at redefining belonging and otherness. In the spirit of embracing the multiplicity, complexity and in-between-ness of our identities, Two Destination Language are working with artist Leo Burtin and producer Alice Booth to host an event that is neither a working lunch, nor a symposium, nor a performance. Though it may be all of these things.
Event information
Taking place on 3rd May at Lancaster Arts (LICA Building), the event will revolve around sharing food and feature gentle interventions by guest artists Lena Simic, Pauline Mayers, Kate Marsh and Sheila Ghelani. Each element is flavoured by the identity and practice of the participant artists. The interventions will be stimuli for conversation with neighbours as you eat, reflecting on the themes of the day, and there will be space to record responses for sharing beyond the room.
We look forward to welcoming anyone with an interest in being part of a generous response to the rapidly changing politics of identity. Please book BY MAY 1ST as this is a limited capacity event. We will email you ahead of time with further information and an opportunity to communicate your dietary and access requirements to us.
The ticket price for this event includes food and soft drinks throughout the event. Concessions are available to those who need them to attend, through self-definition. We would appreciate if those affiliated with an academic institution or regularly funded organisation book a full price ticket so we can offer further discounts and bursaries to people who would not otherwise be able to attend.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, please get in touch with Leo Burtin on leo@lancasterarts.org or call 01524 594165.
